Double glazing company won't talk to wife unless husband is present?

[PrettyPickle]

Just been at my friends house and there was a knock at the door. It was a young lad canvassing for work for a double glazing firm. My mate is interested in having a couple of windows replaced and would be interested in a quote. The young lad asked when her husband would be home and she explained he worked away from home and she dealt with all stuff like this.

He explained that the husband had to be present. She asked why as the house is in her name only and has no mortgage and she would be paying for the windows in cash (not finance) from her money, not her husbands. She explained it was her 2nd marriage and he rented his home out. Well my mind was boggling about why she should have to share this info.

The young lad said he understood but his guidance was that the husband had to be present to allow it to progress. She asked why her husband, why not the three adult kids who also lived in the home and actually had a bigger stake in it as its their inheritance. He seemed perplexed but said that is how it works. My mate thanked him and said that she understood he had to follow the rules so thanks but no thanks.

Apparently this has happened before and whilst she would discuss it with her husband as part of their daily life, she didn't need him to be present, it was her decision, not his.

10 minutes later he returned saying he had explained to the office and they said it would be OK as it was all her property, so they agreed to ring at 4pm. My friend said if they brought up the subject of her husband needing to be present she would not be happy.

4pm came, someone rang and they said her husband had to be present. She explained the earlier conversation and that her husband had no say in the house (they have this legally tied up as they both have kids from a previous marriage) but he was adamant that they could not attend without her husband being present.

Now we both would get this to a certain extent if he was an owner of the property or was contributing to the home improvements but he is not.

Vote:

YANBU for refusing to have her husband present
YABU for her not understanding her husband needed to be present

Why on earth I'd your friend telling a strange man her lifes story, especially of when her husband is or isn't around! He could be a canvassing burglar ffs

I worked in sales for many years and I was very good at it.

We didn't bother embarking on our pitch unless we knew we had the 'decision making unit' in front of us. There's no point wasting time and energy if at the end of an appointment, the person in front of us drones 'well, I'll need to talk it over with my wife/husband' rather than signing on the dotted line.

TBF the companies I worked for all trained us in very hard sales tactics and as we were paid chunky commissions on every sale I was incentivised to follow those techniques.

I am older and wiser now and when a salesperson tries to get my husband involved I tell them that he is far too busy and important to trouble his pretty little head about domestic trivia.

I had the same. I walked out to pick up a takeaway when my OH came home.

We had this with a couple of the big national firms - MrG prefers to leave anything to do with this sort of thing to me and tends to wander off, bored! 🙄They were all stupidly expensive. Finally I asked around and several neighbours recommended a local firm (I'd seen their vans around a lot), who actually employed their fitters full-time. They were absolutely brilliant and about half the price. Sadly they were too small to survive Covid + the subsequent drop in business, but it's worth asking around locally.

Safestyle finally accepted me as the only person in the house and a female that could make decisions. He then gave me an absolutely ridiculous price and then refused to leave my house until I signed up to the deal

he really put the pressure on, this is a today price only etc, I did feel intimidated

he changed his tune when I produced an actual invoice from them 2 years earlier for the same sort of windows at the front of my house that were a third of the cost of the same windows he was trying to quote me for the back. This was well before the massive increase in costs recently. He soon left

and don’t get me started on car showrooms attitude to me…

You haven't understood the issue

True although there seems to be less of it where a man is perceived to be the buyer

I had this when somebody came round to quote for a new drive 🙄

I know that both have to present if you both own the home but since he doesn’t I can’t see why it matters.

Not read the thread but we had this issue with safe style windows

Somethjng like that and I told them to get stuffed.

They rang loads as well.

Oh gosh I remember years ago I had a cold call from safestyle uk. I owned my own home and my boyfriend at the time lived separately but came to mine often. I sat through a good 2 hour presentation on the windows and doors from this guy and then my boyfriend arrived and the sales guy started the 2 hour presentation all over again, despite us explaining why it wasn’t necessary. We literally couldn’t get rid of him. We never did sign up for the windows and it put me off cold callers at the door forever.

I thought we were past this.
About 40 years ago there was water leak in the house and so we filed an insurance claim. A man from the insurance co. came out to inspect the damage and said he'll let me know. Sometime later when he called to tell us if the damage was covered by the insurance or not. He wanted to talk to my husband and I told him my husband wasn't around but he could tell me instead. The young man said, "I'll wait to talk to your husband because I don't want to explain it twice". I saw red. I went to the insurance company in person and soon after he called to apologize. The damage was covered btw and they gave us a hefty check.

So what do you do if you don’t have a husband? Go without windows I suppose

For what it's worth (and I know this is probably going to get me flamed here), I worked for a company where this was the policy for the sales reps. The reason was that there had been an incident where a woman had accused the rep of indecent behaviour which couldn't possibly have happened (he was gay), but the resulting investigation and reporting was incredibly damaging for the company even though he was cleared. As a result, they required two people to be present on the customer side whenever it was possible, and if not then it had to be two sales reps present.

Of course, it's entirely possible that's not the case here...just saying that, sometimes, there can be a good reason for it even though it's not exactly good service.

Another time, we in the market for a new car, so we went to a Range Rover dealership to look at their new models. The salesman ignored me right from the beginning. I was put into the back seat while he only talked to my husband, showing him all the bells and whistles. He only asked my husband to test drive it, while continuing to ignore me. When we got back to the dealership, he asked my husband what he thought of the car, and I piped up and said, "I'm not interested in it. Let's go". The look on his face, lol.

That's ridiculous and so 1970s. 🙄
I live alone and have done for many years so when I'm asked where the man of the house is, I reply "you're speaking to her". Then I send them on their way because I don't like dealing with misogynists.

Thankfully for the past 10 years I've managed to procure a new garden fence, doors and windows throughout my home, a new bathroom and 2 new cars, and of course any other home repairs. Not once have I been asked what my (non existent) husband thinks.

I can think of two events where people were twats. Took the car in for MOT, collected it, talked about it. The bill arrived addressed to my then husband. I told him he could pay it.
Another was when I wasn't receiving a work-place benefit because they assumed my then husband was the higher earner. I'm not sure I believe this, I think they made a mistake and then made it worse with their ridiculous assumption.These were both years and years ago.

Go to another company ….

Exactly this is why it’s NOT sexism or misogyny . It’s a sales tactic. Anyone could say they want to discuss with their partner as a stalling tactic even if house is sokely theirs. They will fully expect people to want to get 3 quotes. BUT they probably will offer a good discount / their best offer, for signing there & then - so the sales person can move onto their next deal. Time is money & it’s a cost to the biz & the sales person if they have to take the time to go back to your house again as the client wanted time to think / discuss with partner / get more quotes .

This makes me so cross im in exactly the same position yet whenever tradesmen come out they speak above me to my boyfriend and its my money. I've purposely not given my trade to people because of this

Sometimes it definitely is sexism. I once stood in a queue for a well known hardware store (one where you can buy bits of wood and hire machinery etc) and was completely ignored. I would say "I think Im next!" but the guys serving would just serve the man behind me in the queue. Eventually I was served and told them the measurements of the wood I wanted and they said "are you sure. Do you think your husband should check?". They said it very kindly. But WTF? As if DH can measure anything accurately!?. This was in the far North if it explains anything at all. Maybe womens emancipation hasn't registered there yet.

He explained that the husband had to be present. She asked why as the house is in her name only and has no mortgage and she would be paying for the windows in cash (not finance) from her money, not her husbands. She explained it was her 2nd marriage and he rented his home out. Well my mind was boggling about why she should have to share this info

My mind is boggling that she did share this information. I just would have said ‘oh that’s a pity then, I’ll be contacting someone else to do the job’, end of conversation. Like fuck I would have shared any of that with a random.

I don’t have a husband either, although when I recently changed my windows, one of the companies said he had to be home in order for them to quote.

I went with a different company obviously , and when the first company rung up to ask about it, I explained that was why I wouldn’t go with them.

Apparently no one else has ever raised a concern about this policy??!!

Years ago Used to work for Cold Shield window company, appointments had to be made with both couples/ owners there, so they could get them to sign up right away before they cool off, also used doing a job nearby etc
Hop it’s not as bad nowadays pressure wise.

Meant to add, so they couldn’t say ‘ I will see what my wife/ husband etc thinks
when they get home, high pressure sales used by the windows business.